Pinned

I do not often like museum captions because I find them either senseless or unnecessarily full of sense. Either I am told information that is obscure and uninteresting that does not help me engage with the picture, or I am told something completely obvious. Occasionally, however, the combination is reached to perfection. The following caption is reproduced from the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Richard Hamilton, Pin-Up 1961

One of the founders of Pop art in Britain, Hamilton took his theme for this work directly from popular culture, using pictures from Playboy and other men’s magazines as his sources. While the work references these ubiquitous photographs of sex symbols, it is also a modern treatment of a conventional subject of painting—the odalisque, or reclining nude. Hamilton approaches this tradition through a variety of pictorial modes: the hair is a stylized cartoon, the breasts appear both in drawing and in three-dimensional relief, and the bra is a photograph applied as a collage. "Mixing idioms," Hamilton has said, "is virtually a doctrine in Pin-up."




In my mind it perfectly balances an explanation of the artist, his period, interest and approach. I learn a little about how the picture is constructed (cartoon, photograph), I am also left with enough curiosity to wish to seek out more information; what does he mean by mixing idioms is a virtual doctrine in Pin-Up? Does he mean for pin-ups as a form in general or just this picture? Why would one picture have a doctrine? Is it only particular to this picture or to his others as well? These are questions with answers that I can only learn by continuing to find out about him...either through looking at more examples of his work, or reading about him and his work, or, ideally, both! How wonderful to have a museum provide a picture and text that would engage me. Well done MoMA, and since Hamilton died last month kudos for managing to bring another person into relationship (for whatever length, since sometimes more information dispels the initial allure, like a second or third date) with his work!